Power failure hits Fukushima nuclear plant

A power failure at the Fukushima nuclear power plant has affected the cooling
system for spent fuel ponds.

A similar outage affected the plant in January of last year.Photo: AP

By Julian Ryall in Tokyo

4:24AM GMT 19 Mar 2013

Engineers at the site are attempting to determine why the power was cut shortly after 7pm on Monday evening.

But officials of Tokyo Electric Power Co. said there was no cause for concern. The outage had affected ponds at reactors 1, 3 and 4, but had not stopped the injection of cooling water into the damaged reactors themselves, they said.

An official said there was no immediate danger because it would take more than 108 hours for water in the spent fuel pool to reach the maximum allowed temperature of 65 degrees (149 Fahrenheit), and they hoped to resore power before then.

According to Tepco data, the temperature of the Unit 4 pool water is at 25 degrees (77F) and increasing at a rate of 0.368 degrees an hour.

"The power stopped in the main anti-earthquake building and has affected the cooling system in the pools at units one, three and four," a spokesperson for Tepco told The Daily Telegraph.

"We can put the power back on now, but as it might stop again we are investigating the cause of the problem."

A similar outage affected the plant, which was crippled by the March 2011 magnitude-9 earthquake off north-east Japan that triggered a powerful tsunami, in January of last year. Officials are not sure if this latest problem has the same cause.

The ponds store used fuel from the reactors and keep it cool. If fresh cooling water can't be provided to the pools, it is possible that the water inside could start to boil, potentially exposing the fuel rods, and radiation, to the air.

Residents of towns just outside the 18-mile exclusion zone around the facility have expressed concern about the latest problem at the plant.

Takashi Haga, an office worker in Fukushima City, told Kyodo News, "It has revived memories of the nuclear accident two years ago. I thought it was under control."

City officials have called on the company to identify the cause of the problem and make sure it does not happen again.

The embattled company has also learned that 26 US service personnel have filed a suit against Tepco demanding up to $2 billion in damages. The plaintiffs, who could be joined by as many as 100 other soldiers and sailors, claim Tepco and the Japanese government lied about radiation levels they were exposed to as they assisted civilians in areas around the plant after the tsunami struck.